Dakota Johnson Gave the Best Response to Parents After Being Cut off Financially

With Women’s History Month here, Dakota Johnson is living proof of a modern-day icon who has been steadfast in her dream. On Tuesday night, Johnson’s father and fellow actor, Don Johnson appeared on Seth Meyers’ late-night talk show to discuss his new sitcom Kenan, but also recalled a conversation he had with his high-spirited daughter when she was in high school. When asked if Johnson would ever consider the advice from her father or mother, Melanie Griffith, Don replied how “that bus left” long before she was a force in Hollywood.

“She doesn’t need any advice from me. The funny thing about her is — we have a rule in the family that, you know, if you stay in school, you get to stay on the payroll,” he said. “So, you go to college, you get to stay on the payroll. Towards the end of high school, I went to her and I said, ‘So, do you want to go visit some colleges?’ Or something like that. And she was like, ‘Oh, no. I’m not going to college.’”

Don recalls telling his daughter how this meant she “won’t be on the payroll anymore” and subsequently inquired how she was “going to manage.” However, his daughter simply told him, “Don’t you worry about it.” He reveals that it was only “three weeks later” that she nailed the part in David Fincher’s The Social Network. “The rest is, shall we say, cinema history,” he said.

The 71-year-old adds how his daughter rarely calls him for advice. “She calls me to say, ‘Gosh, I would see you, but I’ve got three pictures I’m shooting at the same time.” He echoed similar sentiments in an interview with The Guardian, admitting it was all a story within itself. “I didn’t know that she wanted to do it. She hadn’t shared that with us. So she’s 18, I think, at the time and I’m going: ‘Okay, I’ll just keep my eye on her and reach out and catch her.’ [But] that’s the last I saw of Dakota. She has the goods. She’s a wonderful actress, and in some ways better than her mother and me.”

While the 31-year-old landed her first role before turning 10, she notably starred alongside mom Griffith in 1999’s Crazy in Alabama. But it was after The Social Network that she went on to star in several other films, including the blockbuster Fifty Shades Of Grey franchise, How to Be Single and Bad Times at the El Royale.